iPhone Boom Explained by Crowd Behavior
People might say that getting their latest iPhone every time a new version launches is the pure result of their conscious and logical decision, but this article digs deeper into why we can’t resist buying the latest iPhone and how companies are exploiting this kind of vulnerability in consumers through marketing. The article explains that one of the most influential factors that drive us to purchase the latest iPhone is due to the rise of social networking platforms that enable us to easily communicate our desires and information with one another. This positive correlation between the increase in usage of social networking sites and increase in consumer demand for the latest iPhone can be explained by the concept that we learned in class about crowd behavior. In class, we discussed about crowd behavior, or people imitating the behavior of others, that can be explained by mainly 2 types of reasons: Information-based reasons and direct-benefit reasons.
As the article suggests, the rise of social networking platforms have allowed people to easily communicate with their friends and acquaintances. This has enabled people and companies to share more information than in any time in history and for some consumers to make buying decisions based solely on good reviews about the product online. This would be a concept of crowd behavior that is driven by information-based reasons. On the other hand, social networking sites have also enabled people to infer how many of their friends and acquaintances have bought and are using a certain product. Some consumers may find that using iPhone would be more productive in interacting with others if more people used it and therefore seeing that many of their friends and acquaintances have purchased the latest iPhone may influence you to do the same as well to utilize such advantage. This would be an example of direct-benefit reasons that lead to crowd behavior we see in demand for iPhone as the article suggests.
Reference: http://time.com/money/4321597/psychology-why-want-gadgets-iphone/